The door slammed open.
Snow exploded inward.
And the world fractured into motion.
CHAPTER 46
Eric
Snow blasted through the open doorway before I could blink, swallowing the cabin’s shadows in white. Harmony’s voice still echoed in my chest, raw, terrified, unmistakably hers. I charged inside. She was crouched near the back wall, a broken piece of wood clutched in her shaking hand, eyes wide and wild in the dim light. Relief slammed into me so hard my knees almost buckled.
“Harmony.”
“Behind you!” she gasped.
I spun just as a figure lunged through the doorway. Everything happened at once: the crack of a branch, the blur of movement, the cold flash of something metallic in the intruder’s hand. I shoved Harmony behind me and caught the man’s shoulder before he could fully breach the cabin. He was taller than me with a thick coat, a hood shadowing his face, and the kind of strength that didn’t come from the gym but from work that broke a man down and rebuilt him meaner. He slammed into me with full force. Pain shot through my ribs as my back hit the heavy iron stove.
Harmony screamed my name. I pushed off the metal and rammed him sideways. The two of us crashed into the rotted counter. Wood splintered. His fist clipped my jaw. The world snapped white for a second, but adrenaline dragged everything back into focus. Not happening.
Not tonight. Not when Harmony was behind me. I grabbed the front of his coat and drove him into the wall. A grunt tore from his throat. He swung again, this time aiming low. I blocked with my forearm, teeth rattling at the impact.
“Harmony, run!” I shouted.
“No, Eric, I’m not leaving.”
“Go!”
My voice cracked with desperation I didn’t have the luxury of hiding. But the intruder wasn’t trying to get past me anymore. He was trying to get to her. And something about the angle of his body, the sharp turn of his head toward her, the low rasp he made, lit a fuse in me that detonated through every nerve.
I slammed him back, harder this time. His hood slipped enough for me to catch the shape of his jaw, the faint outline of a scar near his cheekbone.
Not Nico or Tremblay or anyone I recognized.
But familiar in a different way, like the shadow I’d glimpsed on the ridge or someone who’d been watching longer than we knew. He tore free of my grip and bolted out the door into the storm. I followed instinctively but froze at the threshold. The snow was a white wall. He was gone. Like he’d been waiting for the moment Harmony called out… and that was enough.
“Harmony,” I breathed, turning back inside.
She stood trembling near the overturned chair, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold the pieces of her body together. I crossed the room in three strides and cupped her face in my hands.
“Are you hurt? Did he. . .”
“I’m okay,” she whispered, but tears gathered along her lashes. “Eric, I thought he was going to hurt you.”
Her voice broke, shattering something inside me. I pulled her against my chest. She didn’t fight it. Didn’t pretend she wasn’t falling apart. She just pressed her forehead to my collarbone, breath shaking like she was relearning how to breathe.
“I’m here,” I murmured. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Her fingers curled in my jacket, desperate, anchoring. The storm howled around us, rattling the frail cabin walls, but inside this moment, everything slowed. She pulled back a fraction, eyes lifting to mine—haunted and vulnerable—but fierce beneath the fear.
“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” she said, voice breaking. “That’s why I left.”
“That’s exactly why I came after you.”
Her breath stuttered.
“You can’t keep following me into danger,” she whispered, trembling.
“I can’t do anything else,” I whispered back.
